“Did they believe you?”
Lyss shrugged, glancing toward the path she’d taken up from the harbor.
She’s still worried, Jenna thought. So she changed the subject. “Will the empress sail with her army? Or stay here?”
Lyss shrugged. “I don’t know. We’ve already sent shiploads of soldiers, horses, and gear. I have to think we’ll go before long, ready or not. Celestine is getting restless.” She paused, as if reluctant to nag. “If you’re going to act, sooner would be better than later.”
Well, Jenna thought, that was bad news. Had she chased the empress all the way across the ocean only to chase her back again? Still, a ship on the expanse of the ocean makes a very good target. She’d learned from experience that ships readily burn.
“I’d like to go now, if I could, but Cas still isn’t back to normal. He needs to be in good shape, because as soon as we deal with Celestine, I want to fly back to the Fells.” She licked her fingers and set the bones aside. Just then, she heard a frantic, ragged flapping of wings. A shadow fell across their makeshift cooking site.
Cas landed hard and skidded a little before he came to a stop. He folded his wings and wrapped his tail around his feet to keep it from knocking over the tent.
Ignoring Lyss, Cas extended his wing to the ground, an invitation to Jenna to climb up. Jenna come now.
“Cas, can’t it wait a little while? Lyss and I were just eating. . . .”
No! Can’t wait. Come now. Wolves. The dragon dropped his head so that he was eye to eye with Jenna. Pleading. Jenna reached out and touched his face, and the dragon’s worry, pain, and grief came down on her like a brick wall.
That didn’t make sense. Wolves wouldn’t be a problem for a nearly grown dragon. “Cas. Tell me what’s going on.”
Cas shot a look at Lyss, as if wishing she would disappear. Hatchlings hurt. Hungry. Please come.
Jenna was bewildered. The only “hatchlings” they’d discussed were related to their planned attack on Celestine’s stronghold.
“What hatchlings? How did they get hurt? Where are they?”
Please. Come now. Cas nudged her with his head, practically toppling her.
“What’s wrong?” Lyss said, standing, dropping the remains of the rabbit carcass into the fire.
“Cas is telling me some hatchlings are hurt, but I don’t know what he’s talking about or where they are,” Jenna said.
“Hatchlings?” Lyss said. “Baby dragons?”
Jenna stared at Lyss. Baby dragons? That possibility had never occurred to her. What would baby dragons be . . . She turned back to Cas. “Baby dragons?”
Please come. Wolves. Cas pressed his head against her hand, and images of a cave littered with blood and scales sent her reeling.
Jenna’s heart sank. She might be a miner, an explosives expert, and a soul mate to dragons, but what she knew about healing could fit on the head of a pin. And if she touched a dying dragon, or one mortally injured, she wasn’t sure she could stand it, let alone treat it. She thought of Adam Wolf, recalling his strong, gentle hands, his quiet confidence, the magic in his touch. It was yet another reason to wish he was here.
Lyss’s voice broke into her thoughts. “Well? What is it? What happened?” The captain was standing, fists clenched, balanced on the balls of her feet, as if prepared to leap into action.
“Cas says a pack of wolves found a nest of baby dragons,” Jenna told Lyss. “They’re injured, and—and he hopes I can help them. But I—” She didn’t want to admit to her fear of failure with Cas looking on, but Lyss seemed to read it in her face.
“I just brought up a kit of medical supplies,” Lyss said. “I’ve treated a lot of wounds in the field. Maybe I could help, though I don’t really know anything about—”
“Lyss can help us,” Jenna said to Cas. “Can she come with us?”
Cas eyed Lyss. Wolf.
“I know, but her littermate was one of the best healers I ever knew. He saved my life.”
Worry about the hatchlings seemed to have crowded every other worry away, because the dragon said, Yes. Bring wolf girl. And rope. Hurry.
9
MEETING OF MATELONS
Spring had always been Hal Matelon’s favorite season—a time when each day dawned more fragrant than the last, the rich soil itself proclaiming the life below its surface, ready to burst into view. The rivers surged out of their banks, fed by the melting snow in the Heartfangs. The new leaves formed like a green mist around the treetops of the Tamron Forest. It was then, between the rainy winters and torrid summers, that the dourest southerner might believe in magic.
Since Hal had joined the army as a stripling of eleven, springtime also brought reunions with fellow soldiers and officers he hadn’t seen since Solstice, the scent of leather and horses and woodfires. There was always hope at the start of a new campaign that this time they would achieve a decisive victory against the most tenacious and savvy fighters he’d ever come up against. He’d always preferred the discipline of military life to the mincing dance of the social season.
Until this spring, when his king called him a traitor, his father thought he’d been bewitched, and his heart called him north to the aid of people he’d always considered to be his enemies. Now he’d been at least partly responsible for sending his mother and sister into northern hands. If Lila Barrowhill was telling the truth. There was no way to know.
His gut told him that they were safer in the hands of Queen Raisa than under the control of his own king. Which said a lot about how his life had been going.
Now the fertile plains between Ardenscourt and Temple Church had become a no-man’s-land of burnt-out farmhouses and abandoned fields. The few working farms that remained were guarded by grim-faced men and women with cudgels and rusty blades from long-ago battles. The green tips of the new crops were showing, but there was no livestock in the fields. Either it had already been confiscated by foraging soldiers or it was locked away from view in barns and sheds so as not to draw a hungry eye.
Hal and Robert wore nondescript clothing, but Robert’s horse was standard military issue, and Hal’s was the one he’d stolen from the empress’s army before he came south. He suspected that neither of them could pass for farmers.
Robert reined in beside him, his gelding dancing and tossing his head in his eagerness to go forward. That was something—he and Robert were out of Newgate Prison and on their way home. He just didn’t know what kind of reception they’d get to the message they had to deliver.
When they reached the checkpoint that marked the boundary of rebel-controlled territory, it was staffed with militiamen that Hal didn’t know. It took a lot of talking and a safe passage letter from their father to get them through.
The encampment at Temple Church was a busy place—wagons loaded and lined up, ready to hitch to teams, cannon mounted on their wheeled carts, prepared for transport, squires and orderlies rushing around in service of the thanes and higher-level officers. Raoul Bouchard, the blacksmith for White Oaks, sweated at the outdoor forge, reshoeing dun-colored military horses. Clearly, the massed armies of the rebellious thanes were finally getting ready to march somewhere.
But where? Hal thought.
Hal and Robert handed their horses off to the young boy who seemed to be managing the paddocks. When they asked after Thane Matelon, he pointed them to one of the barns. Inside, Hal could see that the building had been pressed into use as a warehouse, with gear and ordnance and staples piled nearly to the ceiling. He found his father deep in conversation with Jan Rives, the quartermaster.
Matelon looked up as Hal and Robert entered, and his frown faded. “Thank the Maker,” he said, and embraced each of them in turn, which was about as demonstrative as Hal had ever seen him. He followed with, “Now we can finally get moving. I hate feeding an army sitting on its ass.”
Matelon dismissed Rives and motioned them to a bench between the shelves of supplies, while he leaned against a stall door. Hal couldn’t help th
inking his father had grown visibly older, more haggard than before, in the scant few weeks since Hal had seen him.
“Did you run into any trouble on your way here?” he asked.
They shook their heads. “I think the king has his hands full with what’s been going on in the capital,” Robert said, swelled up with news, like a bubble about to burst.
“I’ve heard some of it, I think,” Lord Matelon said. “I heard that there was another northern attack on the capital while you were there.”
“There was another attack,” Hal said, narrowing his eyes at his brother—a warning. Their father was not someone who liked dealing with complicated messes, and this was the most complicated mess they’d ever been involved with. They’d come up with a marginally plausible, straightforward story—a mingle of truth and lies. Now it was up to him to deliver it convincingly.
Blessedly, Robert pressed his lips together and looked up at the rafters. Hal’s little brother had learned some hard lessons about playing his cards close.
“Apparently,” Hal said, “Mother and Harper and the other hostages were at a party the king was throwing for guests from the downrealms when somebody blew up the Cathedral Temple.”
“What were they doing there?” Matelon looked from Hal to Robert. “Why would the king invite his prisoners to a party?”
Hal shrugged. “He keeps calling them guests. I assume he wanted to show them off to demonstrate to the downrealms representatives that life at court was back to normal.”
“They found out differently in a hurry,” Robert said. “Like Hal said, somebody blew up the Cathedral Temple and several other buildings. When the smoke cleared, Princess Madeleine, Queen Marina, and all of the hostages were gone.”
“Gone? Gone where?” Matelon looked from Hal to Robert.
“Nobody knows,” Hal said. “Not only that, Luc Granger, one of the king’s favorites, was killed during the attack.”
“Granger? The upstart gaoler Jarat gifted Whitehall to?”
Hal nodded.
“I was so looking forward to giving him a warm welcome when he came to claim it,” Matelon said, with his tiger’s smile. “I suppose that won’t be necessary.”
“No,” Hal said, wondering what his father would say if he knew it had been Harper who did the deed.
“Where were you two during all of this?” Their father hadn’t survived this long in the deadly world of Ardenine politics by overlooking important details.
“I had just tracked down Robert in the city. When we learned that Jarat was keeping the hostages in the Pit, we gave up the idea of a rescue. So we made preparations to return here.”
“The Pit.” A muscle in his father’s jaw twitched, and two spots of color appeared on his cheeks—never a good sign. When Hal and Robert were children, that expression would have sent them fleeing into hiding.
“Aye, sir.”
“So he was keeping them in the Pit except for when he trotted them out for parties?” Matelon took a long breath, then slowly let it out. “I suppose they’re blaming us for the attack.”
“I wish it had been us,” Robert said, with some heat. Then he clamped his mouth shut and looked at Hal.
Good touch, little brother, Hal thought. He chose his words carefully. “King Jarat’s spymaster, Lieutenant Karn, claims he has evidence that Empress Celestine is behind it.”
“Really?” Matelon said, skeptically. “The empress again. How do you know what Karn’s claiming? I suppose you and the spymaster discussed it?”
Actually, we did, Hal thought, and this was the best we could come up with after Lila landed this situation in our laps. “Most of this is barracks gossip,” he said, “but from people who have been reliable in the past.”
“Why would the empress want to kidnap our families?” Matelon said. “Isn’t she busy enough in the north?”
“Maybe that’s the difference between an empress and a king,” Robert said. “An empress can meddle in more than one country at a time.”
“Surely Jarat could have intercepted the kidnappers between Ardenscourt and the eastern coast,” their father said. “They couldn’t move quickly with such a large group of women and children.”
Hal shook his head. “They went south, instead of east, and took ship from Southgate.” He paused, then added, “The ship was of Carthian registry.”
“Huh.” Matelon rubbed his jaw. “How has the king reacted to all of this?”
“Obviously, he’s looking for a scapegoat—someone to blame for an attack that bold, and that successful, in front of his guests from the captive realms. He is determined to seek revenge, to discourage any thoughts of rebellion on their part. Rumor has it that he’s planning to take his army north to free them.”
“You seem remarkably well informed of what the king is thinking and doing.” His father paused, as if expecting Hal to explain. When that didn’t happen, he said, “Why would he expect to succeed where his father has failed for nearly thirty years?”
Robert jumped in. “Because Jarat wasn’t personally involved in those earlier missions,” he said. “He seems to think he can do better.”
Matelon laughed sourly. “A common affliction among the young,” he said, giving Hal a measured look. “If you ask me, that’s a fool’s errand. Jarat will end up fighting both the northern witch and the empress. If we’re lucky, he’ll get himself killed before he gets himself an heir.”
Now was the time for Hal to lay his cards on the table and see if he held a winning hand. “We should march north, too,” Hal said, “and join the fight before it’s too late.”
His father scowled at him, as if a good story had just come to a bad ending. “Now you’ve lost me. Why would we do that? We are named traitors, marked for death. Do you think Jarat would pardon us if we waded in on his side?”
“I’m not suggesting that we join Jarat. I’m saying that we should join the Fells against Jarat and the empress.”
If he’d lost his father before, now Hal had left him way behind. Matelon looked at Robert, as if he might weigh in, then back at Hal.
“That’s not our fight,” Matelon said flatly.
“It will be,” Hal said, looking his father in the eyes.
“It’s not our fight right now,” Matelon said. “Right now, if Jarat’s foolish enough to go north with our army ready to march, then right now, we need to take advantage of it.”
“Harper and Mother are in Celestine’s hands,” Hal said, “or soon will be.”
“This empress really has you spooked, Son,” Matelon said gruffly.
“Maybe you should listen to me for once,” Hal said, his impatience boiling over.
The Matelon men looked at each other, like three unyielding rock pillars.
Hal took a deep breath. “All right,” he said. “Here’s another option. From what I’ve seen, you have men ready to march. It will take King Jarat a little longer to get under way. Give me a brigade, and I’ll march north and rescue our families before the king’s armies arrive. Then we can meet Jarat’s forces in the borderlands, while you come up from the south. They won’t be expecting that, and it will mean they don’t have the advantage of the fortifications in the capital. That way, we’ll avoid a siege. Once we handle Jarat and his army, the city will fall easily.”
Matelon snorted. “I am not an empress, Son, I am a simple thane, with considerable fighting experience behind me. I’ve found it best not to fight on too many fronts at once. Let Jarat go north if he wants to. While he’s chasing through the mountains, we’ll march on Ardenscourt.”
“There’s no reason to change those plans, Father,” Hal said. “As soon as I’m finished in the north, I’ll come south and join you.”
Matelon shook his head. “You’ve seen who my allies are. They’re all sharpening their knives, waiting for the opportunity to stab me in the back. I need someone I can trust at the head of our forces, and you’re the only one with the talent, skill, and ability to claim the command.”
It was
the same old story. No negotiation. No compromise.
“You’re making a mistake, Father,” Hal said, his voice even, his gaze direct. “You’re going to win one battle and lose the war.”
His father stared at him, eyes narrowing, as if seeing something he hadn’t seen before. Then he ran his hand over his face, wiping it away.
“If we don’t win this civil war, we’ll be tried and executed,” he said. “Is that what you want? You’d let down your family, risk your legacy, and allow this house that has stood since the Breaking to fall so that you can rush to the aid of the queen in the north?”
They’d had this argument too many times before, and it always came down to this—honor, duty, and loyalty to the Matelon banner. Worse, the thane militias had no loyalty to Hal—he’d been away for seven years, fighting with the army of Arden. The men he knew would be preparing to march with General Bellamy and King Jarat.
Without the support of his father, he’d be marching north by himself.
“Very well, Father,” Hal said, teeth gritted. “I’ll take the city for you. But, after that, I’m taking a brigade and I’m marching north.”
10
SMUGGLER’S COVE
Lila Barrowhill Byrne peered down at the wreckage of the harbor at Wolf’s Head. The long pier was gone, as were most of the smaller docks. The water’s surface prickled with broken masts and the burnt-out shells of the small ships that had been her playground as a child.
All along Smuggler’s Coast, it was the same story. Harbor-front businesses burned, ships broken and sunk, the people dead or gone. Everything left to rot. It wasn’t as if Celestine’s soldiers had taken over the hamlets and towns and left a garrison there. The empress’s blue-water ships had no use for these small, shallow harbors. They just came ashore, destroyed everything, carried the people off as prisoners, and moved on.
Her smuggler relatives were resilient, flexible survivors. But they couldn’t survive this.
“Maybe your people fled before the drylanders arrived,” Shadow said, behind her. “They would be smart enough to know that this was a battle they couldn’t win.”
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